Bruce and Liselotte continued for several more hours, toward Akkajaure. Passing between several valleys, the air was biting and crisp. The Sun's absence lent a gentle serenity to the landscape, alone but for the sound of the wind and their steady footfalls upon the rock surface.
Beneath the quilt of stars and moonlight, it was close to midnight when they decided to stop to pitch tents. Liselotte had a GPS, showing them within several miles of Akkajaure, though they couldn't see it under the cover of night. They would start afresh in the morning to check the lake's cabins.
As they erected their tents, Liselotte explained that the nearby lake, Akkajaure, got its name from Akka. One of the traditional goddess-spirits venerated by the local Sámi peoples, Akkajaure translated in the Sámi language to "Akka lake." One of the beliefs, she said, was Akka, the feminine Sámi spirit, lived under their tents.
"My grandmother was a shaman," she said, "or rather a noaidi, a Sámi shaman. The Sámi's traditional spiritual practices are animist."
"Meaning the worship of animal spirits?"
"Close," she said. "It's best described as a spirituality inherent in life - even inanimate objects, or so-called non-living beings, such as rocks, or water bodies. Animists believe all these have a soul. The traditional Sámi rituals emphasize a pantheon of these deities embodied in aspects of the natural world. They worship animal spirits like reindeer and bears. The Sámi also venerate the dead, as death is a part of life.
"The shaman's role is to straddle worlds: the corporal, ethereal, and natural. In our so-called civilization, we're shut off from experiencing these liminal worlds, seldom even close to touching the fringe. I relate to this too: my work is in the sciences, the rational, yet also have sympathies towards my grandmother's beliefs and practices.
"We cannot escape the conceits of mankind's flaws - it's always with us, even in the noble pursuits of religion and tradition. In some cultures, traditional medicine and beliefs even drive the trade and hunting of wildlife.
"The spirit world, occupied by animist spirits, is an answer to managing this proximity and interaction. To the eyes of modernity, it's bogus. What's important is, it's there, for anyone to experience if they want it. This is the role of the noaidi - a mediator of worlds. The living and the dead, humankind and our brotherhood of other lifeforms and features of the land. The industrialized world values science and reason. One could argue it brought prosperity. But whatever benefits, we're now at the precipice of extinction. Our species does this to our own and others: eradicate, erase, extirpate. Our drive is to self-destruct, with repetition and aggression. To take everything out with us, a species-wide scorched earth instinct, annihilating what sustains us.
"Though our own species face extinction, with irony, our population continues to grow. Surrounding us, within a 50-kilometer radius, are hundreds of glaciers. Like in Tarfala, the glaciers have formed all the valleys we've been traversing. Geologists call the era we're now in the Holocene, its beginning marked by the retreat of the glaciers in the last ice age. It's now believed we have moved out of the Holocene and are now in the Anthropocene, "anthropo-" meaning human. A planetary-wide, geological epoch characterized by the impact of man.
"There is hope, but first, we need to recognize this compulsion is inherent. We must ask ourselves, are we fulfilling this civilizational drive toward the cessation of life?"
At this polar outcrop of the planet, Bruce felt dread more than elsewhere. Was a symptom of the atmosphere being closer at this latitude. Here, ominous fate and inevitability seemed more tangible. Bruce didn't know what any of it held for him. The future of one's fate - or humanity's at large - was far scarier than anything supernatural.
All he wished for was to be in the moment - free of apprehension of Kirk's whereabouts, or any notion of himself as it pertained to the past or future. Among a quiet stillness, he relished the weightiness of the Arctic sky. Its proximity toward the land lent a looming sense of impending doom. There was also a coziness to it though, akin to the warmth of giving in to a state of depression - a welcome melancholia.
With no anticipation of daybreak around a near corner, as though the Sun was dead or dying, Bruce could languish in this darkness.
He felt a peace knowing any forward motion would be at the whims of his base instincts, not rational knowledge, and the application of science. Bruce was now on equal footing with all beings. The body, in the natural environment, could attune to the environment - to shut out the noise of the rational mind and be.
He knew, on an innate level, reflective of his immediate environment, this was the solitary way forward. His fear was Kirk could by now be more beast than brethren.
A mist sifted across their campsite. He inhaled, with depth, the sweet freshness of the air, rejuvenating, his body still, at ease. Bruce appreciated the calmness and peace of being at one with nature, accepting the uncertainty lying ahead.
"If we find him," asked Bruce to Liselotte, "and he's experiencing hypothermia, what can we do?"
"There's little you can do," replied Liselotte. "At the severe stage, a person goes into cardiac arrest, and needs a life support machine to function."
As Liselotte turned toward her tent for the night, Bruce grabbed her attention. "I'm going to keep going."
"Tonight?! No, we'll start fresh in the morning. If you go now, you'll crash in the middle of the day tomorrow."
"It's OK," said Bruce. "I know. I'll be back by the time the Sun comes up."
"This is ridiculous," protested Liselotte. "Why?"
Bruce didn't know whether it was worth saying it, whether she'd understand. "If I don't go now, we'll miss him. I don't expect you to come with me. But my sense is, if we wait until tomorrow, we'll lose him. I know it's based on nothing more than my sense, but I've come this far, and I need to abide by the thought."
She nodded, now understanding. "OK." She only needed to hear it expressed. Bruce had painted her with the brush of a scientist, thinking she'd look askance at his irrational compulsion. "I'll wait here until midday tomorrow, then I'll go back to Tarfala. You'll be able to find me there tomorrow night if you miss me. Be safe. You know there's always the cabins around Akkajaure. There's bound to be someone there, or otherwise a place to shelter.
